Rain in the Desert
by Thel
Summary: Daniel is recovering... but he's done this before.


_Author's Note: So here's the thing... I need some input with this one._

* * *

Season 8 spoilers  
PG Rated  
First Person POV  
Daniel is recovering... but he's done this before.

* * *

I'm lost.  
  
I have to keep moving.  
  
Voices around me, calling from the winds.  
  
Is it Now, or am I dreaming?  
  
I'm a child, in Tel a-Rimah. Just a child.  
  
"Mom, I found these."  
  
"Not now, Danny. Why don't you draw a picture?"  
  
Danny. Always calls me Danny, like I'm a kid.  
  
I found these things. Small pieces of carved stone. Animals. Lost at the base of the statue. In my six-year-old imagination, I can recreate the entire scene.  
  
"Father, I have found these." A young Egyptian boy proudly holds up something... colourful rocks or maybe some bones. He would be wearing a light, woven kilt and maybe some gold jewellery. I can picture his carefully shaved head, something my mother keeps threatening to do to me when I try to escape her blunt scissor haircuts.  
  
His father, dark and tall, turns to look at him.  
  
"Not at this moment, Amon. Why do you not play with your animals?"  
  
And, like me, Amon retreats to the side, to play with his animals. Except, he doesn't. He's caught up in watching his father work, just as I watch my mother. Amon's animals lie abandoned, right on the spot where my small helmet lies. I used it as a shovel to dig up the animals, and forgot it immediately afterward.  
  
I curl up with the animals clutched in my fist, watching my mother as she translates the obelisk. I feel a kinship to the long-forgotten boy who lost these animals.  
  
The ancient child that I call Amon would become my imaginary friend in the years that followed. My only friend for many of those years. Those animals would follow me from home to home. They, with my mother's book on archaeology, would be my only possessions.  
  
But, six years old in Egypt and unaware of the tragic changes my life would soon undergo, I play with Amon under the pounding sun. I let Amon have the lion, because it is the hottest part of the day, and lions are notoriously lazy in hot weather. He will not have to move the large cat much. Amon and I speak in Arabic as we play.  
  
I keep the jackal and the gazelle for myself. They chase each other over the dunes. Ah, the jackal has almost caught the gazelle... but she is swift. She hides behind the ridge of the next dune.  
  
Again, the jackal has found her. Amon, what will she do?  
  
Amon tells the gazelle to hide behind the lion.  
  
Good idea.  
  
"I am a mighty lion." Amon says. "I may not care much for the gazelle, but I care nothing for jackals."  
  
The jackal turns tail and runs, leaving the gazelle and the lion.  
  
"Are you my friend?" The gazelle asks.  
  
"I am not your friend." The lion replies sternly. "But I will defend you from the jackal. Some day, I may have need of you."  
  
"And on that day?"  
  
"We shall see."  
  
I think that Amon is a very strange child. I gather up my animals. I'm tired and I don't feel very good.  
  
"Mom?" My voice sounds like a cranky baby's. I'm not a baby. My name is Daniel, not Danny, and I'm not a child.  
  
It's too hot.  
  
"Danny, have you been out here all day? Where's your hat?" Cool hands on my face. "Oh, God, Danny. You're burning up. Mel? Mel! Danny's sick."  
  
"I'll start the jeep. We'll get him back to the village."  
  
"There's no doctor in the village."  
  
"There's Akilah. She will do what she can."  
  
I'm curled up in my mother's arms, eyes closed, resting against her shoulder. She tugs her scarf off of her head and wets it with water from one of the canteens. She puts it over my head and face. I breathe in the damp air, smelling my mother's soap and the dry desert winds.  
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Yes, Danny?"  
  
"Don't forget Amon."  
  
"What, sweetheart?"  
  
"He's dreaming, Claire." My father is all but drowned out by the roar of the ancient motor as he pulls up in the jeep. "Let's go."

* * *

I'm lost again. Unstuck in time, unable to tell past from present.  
  
I'm six years old, lying on a bed in Akilah's hut, with my parents hovering over me.  
  
At the same time, I know I've done this already. I know I was sick for days. My mother stayed by my side constantly. I heard her crying once, and Akilah talking about sun-fever, and possible brain damage and kidney failure. Akilah was not a doctor, but she assisted old Doctor Bergstrom for many years before the doctor died last year. The village still did not have a replacement doctor, only the brusque young man who lived in Cairo and only visited every few months. Everyone came to Akilah instead.  
  
I know that my father slept in the large bed next to me every night, watching me. I remember feeling his hand on my chest every so often. It was only when I grew up that I realised that he was checking my breathing, reassuring himself that I was still alive.  
  
And I remember Amon, the inquisitive child I had imagined in the high desert. Wise beyond his years, he told me many tales of the jackal, the lion and the gazelle. He told me that someday, I would be surrounded by jackals. Like the gazelle, I would find a pride of lions. The lions would not care for me at first, but they would like jackals even less. Eventually, when the time came that they would have to decide whether to turn on me, they would not do it. 

They would keep me, a gazelle among lions.  
  
And I would belong.  
  
I remember that.  
  
Amon would tell me many such stories in the years to come. Whenever I would find myself alone, Amon would pop up with some unlikely tale about how someday, someone would take me in... despite my differences... despite my oddities. They would take me in because they had to, at first. But maybe, eventually, they would get to like me.  
  
Maybe love me.  
  
Maybe adopt me?  
  
I kept that story close to my heart through every new foster home, every new classroom, every new school.  
  
I held on to that story for years until I went to university.  
  
On the day I left for the campus residence, I packed away the animals in my battered old suitcase and I bid Amon farewell.  
  
The world was full of jackals, but I did not need the lions. I would make my own way by being faster than the jackals and smarter than the lions. I didn't need any of them.  
  
I'm remembering now. I'm not so confused. I'm not six years old.  
  
Something happened.  
  
I was surrounded by jackals.  
  
And Catherine found me.  
  
And Jack.  
  
And Sha're. My lioness.  
  
I found my pride of lions.  
  
"Sha're?" I twist in my bed.  
  
"Doctor Jackson?" A woman's voice and rapid footsteps. That's wrong, though. Sha're never called me that.  
  
"Daniel." I whisper.  
  
"Daniel. Daniel, it's Leda." I hear a relieved smile in the voice. "You're getting better. Your fever broke last night."  
  
The mattress dips to the side as she sits. A hand snakes behind my head and helps to raise it. "Drink this. It will help with the pain."  
  
I take slow sips. It numbs my lips and my throat.  
  
"Thank you." The medicine is followed up by a little water. I lick my lips. It's dark and I can't see anything. "Last... last night?"  
  
"Yes, Daniel. You've been very sick. Jared and I were very worried."  
  
"I... I can't... I don't..."  
  
"Don't push it. It will come. For now, it's best you rest."  
  
"Rest."  
  
I sleep, and dream of rain in the desert.

* * *

_Note: And that's it! :) Quite short. Here's the idea... the incomparable Pettygrew has the rest of this fic all beta'd up nicely. This is the unbeta'd test version. I'm thinking of writing a longer story of Daniel and Amon's adventures, and I'm just wondering if you guys would be interested or if it's best left as a little vignette. I could go either way at this point. Once I decide what to do, I'll either post the beta'd version of this fic or I'll write more. (grin) Hmmm... Anyway, regardless, thanks for reading! _


End file.
